The quantitative research of wetland landscape fragmentation in the middle reaches of the Heihe River is important for the wetland and oasis sustainable development in the Hexi Corridor. Based on the data of remote sensing and GIS, we constructed the type change tracker model with sliding window technique and spatially mor- phological rule. The suitable scale and optimum scale of the fragmentation model of wetland landscape in the middle reaches of the Heihe River were determined by the area frequency statistics method, Chi-square distribution normal- ized scale variance, fractal dimension and diversity index. By integrating type change tracker model and the optimum scale with GIS spatial analysis, the spatial distribution characteristics of wetland landscape fragmentation in different periods and the related spatial-temporal change process were clarified. The results showed that （1） the type change tracker model, which analyzes the spatial pattern of wetland fragmentation on the pixel level, is better than the tradi- tional wetland fragmentation analysis on the landscape and patch levels; （2） The suitable scale for the wetland frag- mentation ranged from 150 rex150 m to 450 mx450 m and the optimum scale was 250 mx250 m in the middle reaches of the Heihe River; and （3） In the past 35 years, the total wetland area decreased by 23.2% and the frag- mentatJon of wetland markedly increased in the middle reaches of the Heihe River. The areas of core wetlands re- duced by 12.8% and the areas of perforated, edge and patch wetlands increased by 0.8%, 3.1% and 8.9%, respec- tively. The process of wetland fragmentation in the research region showed the order of core wetland, perforated or edge wetland, patch wetland or non-wetland. The results of this study would provide a reference for the protection, utilization and restoration of limited wetland resources and for the sustainable development of the regional eco-environment in the Heihe River Basin.
Variations of precipitation have great impacts on soil carbon cycle and decomposition of soil organic matter.Soil bacteria are crucial participants in regulating these ecological processes and vulnerable to altered precipitation.Studying the impacts of altered precipitation on soil bacterial community structure can provide a novel insight into the potential impacts of altered precipitation on soil carbon cycle and carbon storage of grassland.Therefore,soil bacterial community structure under a precipitation manipulation experiment was researched in a semi-arid desert grassland in Chinese Loess Plateau.Five precipitation levels,i.e.,control,reduced and increased precipitation by 40%and 20%,respectively(referred here as CK,DP40,DP20,IP40,and IP20)were set.The results showed that soil bacterial alpha diversity and rare bacteria significantly changed with altered precipitation,but the dominant bacteria and soil bacterial beta diversity did not change,which may be ascribed to the ecological strategy of soil bacteria.The linear discriminate analysis(LDA)effect size(LEfSe)method found that major response patterns of soil bacteria to altered precipitation were resource-limited and drought-tolerant populations.In addition,increasing precipitation greatly promoted inter-species competition,while decreasing precipitation highly facilitated inter-species cooperation.These changes in species interaction can promote different distribution ratios of bacterial populations under different precipitation conditions.In structural equation model(SEM)analysis,with changes in precipitation,plant growth characteristics were found to be drivers of soil bacterial community composition,while soil properties were not.In conclusion,our results indicated that in desert grassland ecosystem,the sensitive of soil rare bacteria to altered precipitation was stronger than that of dominant taxa,which may be related to the ecological strategy of bacteria,species interaction,and precipitation-induced variations of plant growth characteristics.
Precipitation(PPT)changes affect both aboveground vegetation dynamics and belowground carbon cycling processes,particularly in arid and semiarid regions.However,it remains unclear how extreme PPT variation can affect soil carbon sequestration potential.A 3-year PPT manipulation experiment with five levels(±40%,±20%and ambient PPT)was conducted in a desert grassland of western Loess Plateau.Aboveground net primary productivity(ANPP)and soil respiration(Rs)were measured to examine whether the responses of ANPP and Rs to PPT changes displayed a double asymmetry model.The ANPP was more sensitive to extreme drought than extreme wet treatments in wet and dry years,which displayed a negative asymmetric model.The change in ANPP was mainly due to the direct effect of PPT change,and plant density variation also exerted some influence in the dry year.In contrast,Rs displayed a positive asymmetry response to PPT change in dry year.This may be ascribed to enhanced autotrophic respiration due to the enhanced positive responses of plant growth and ANPP to wet treatments as well as stronger birch effect of rainfall events on heterotrophic respiration.The saturating response of Rs to extreme drought(−40%PPT treatment)was also found in the dry year.Nevertheless,the response of Rs to PPT change displayed a negative asymmetry model in wet years.The contrasting models for ANPP and Rs in response to altered PPT regime suggest that extreme wet or dry treatments may increase soil C pools effluxes toward debt in this desert grassland.
